1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a control system of a substrate processing apparatus, a collecting unit, a substrate processing apparatus and a control method of the substrate processing apparatus, and particularly relates to the control system of the substrate processing apparatus, the collecting unit, the substrate processing apparatus suitable for realizing highly frequent data collection regarding the substrate processing apparatus, and the control method of the substrate processing apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
The substrate processing apparatus, for example, a semiconductor manufacturing device is constituted of a plurality of components (devices), and a service life or a failure rate is different for each component, and therefore a stable operation of each component of the semiconductor manufacturing device is an important element for manufacturing a semiconductor.
In a semiconductor manufacturing system, being an example of a substrate processing system, in order to form a film on a semiconductor substrate (wafer), being a kind of a substrate, control is performed based on a procedure of defining the components that constitute the semiconductor manufacturing device, for example based on a recipe. The recipe defines the procedure of a control performed to temperature, pressure, and gas, regarding a furnace in which the film is formed on the semiconductor substrate. Thus, control required for each component such as a sub-control part (included in the component) including a temperature control part and a pressure control part, etc., MFC for adjusting a flow rate of gas, and a valve for opening/closing a gas flow, is sequentially performed. Further, drive control for charging and discharging the semiconductor substrate into/from the furnace for carrying out film formation, is defined by this recipe in some cases.
In a system of controlling the semiconductor manufacturing device, a plurality of components need to be suitably control led with high frequency. However, it is difficult to output data collected from each component with high frequency as is requested by a semiconductor manufacturing plant.
Note that conventionally, data is directly collected by an external storage medium, and the collected data is utilized off-line. Specifically, the collected data is stored in the external storage medium during executing the recipe, and data analysis is performed by carrying the external storage medium to outside (for example, see patent document 1). However, in a recent on-line tendency, off-line is not preferable. In recent years, the collected data is reported (transmitted) through a host control line. However, a particle size (frequency) requested by the semiconductor manufacturing plant side is not obtained even by a method of utilizing the host control line. For example, the frequency with which the data is transmitted by this method is generally about 0.5 Hz to 2 Hz, and does not reach the frequency of 10 Hz or more which is requested by a client (semiconductor manufacturing plant side).
Therefore, in recent years, in the semiconductor manufacturing plant, high frequent data collection is desired to the control system of the semiconductor processing apparatus, for the purpose of performing production control regarding the semiconductor manufacturing device, performance and operation rate management, and failure detection management, etc.
However, in a conventional control system of the semiconductor processing apparatus, control data including process control data (such as data of temperature, pressure, flow rate of gas, etc.) and transfer control data, event data, and exceptional (abnormal) data, etc., can not be collected at a high speed. Wherein, event means the data of showing start and end of the operation of each component controlled during processing of the substrate, and reporting start and end of the step executed during processing the substrate. Further, as examples of the event, start of carrying wafers, end of carrying wafers, start of a process (recipe), end of the process (recipe), loading of a carrier, and unloading of the carrier, etc., can be given.
(Patent document 1) Japanese Patent Publication No. 3630245